


Meteoric, dysphoric, soldered by hand

by bookmarc



Category: Designations congruent with things, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Trans Newton Geiszler, fic based on fic, not being able to properly argue with your life-partner also sucks, transition sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 13:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14333499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookmarc/pseuds/bookmarc
Summary: Hermann is tired of being treated to a tangle of memories every time they try to have a proper argument.





	Meteoric, dysphoric, soldered by hand

"Do you have any idea how _hard_ it was to teach graduate students when I looked _fifteen_?" Newton's voice has cracked up a register, as it frequently does when he’s acutely upset.  
"Ah, yes, I'm sure that was _such_ a struggle,” Hermann shoots back. “To be tenured in your _twenties_ , I cannot even _imagine_ what you had to put up with –"  
"No, you can't, because you've never had to fight for respectability! You were _born_ into it, so you can take your sanctimony and your _rectitude_ and _stick it up your ass._ "

But he _does_ know, doesn't even have to imagine, because he can remember being at a cafe late Saturday afternoon, far enough away from campus that it wasn't crawling with students, grading papers over a mocha that Hermann knows, in some strange doubling of remembered taste and current judgment, is too sweet. His stomach is aching because he hasn't eaten anything real today and the mocha is following on the two cups of coffee it had taken to get him out of the apartment.  
Someone sits down at the table next to him and they accidentally make eye contact.  
"Homework?" she asks, smiling in a way that used to make him think he was being misgendered but now is definitely because she thinks he's a teenager.  
"Grading," he says, and it comes out neutral only because “scathing” has never really been in his skillset. He's not sure how it can look like anything else, with a stack of papers he's taking a pen to. He looks back down, scrawls messy notes in margins in purple glitter pen, and lets himself be resentful.

He's at a department tea and there's a new crop of first-years from first-semester bio, and he's starting in on a Whole Foods knock-off oreo when a fresh-faced wet-behind-the-ears kid about a foot taller than him sidles up, smiles at him, a little assessing in a way that Newt knows from past experience is bad news, holds out a hand. "Hey. I'm Lucas. Are you a major?"  
"Professor, actually," Newt says, trying not to choke on faux-oreo crumbs, honestly not doing a lot for his dignity, which was not that impressive to start with.  
"Um," says the kid, but before he can respond Newt is rescued by his neuro TA.

And Hermann _remembers_ it, remembers the moments like scratches on the screen of a phone, abrasions against the landscape of his past, sticking in the foreground as he focuses on them. Remembers being on a plane at 18 on his way to a conference and the flight attendant stopping to make sure he's old enough to sit in the exit row and _he already has facial hair coming in, how is this still happening?,_ remembers getting turned away from a bar because they thought his ID was fake even though it was only a year old and matched his presentation, remembers getting called jailbait at 22, because somehow, on him, “youth” had never seemed sexy to anyone.  
He snaps back into the present, breathing harder than he should be in the lack of any real physical perturbation, still staring at Newton; confused, adrift both conversationally and ontologically.  
Hermann looks away.  
“I confess I miss being able to argue with you properly,” he says, and hears Newton huff out a soft laugh.  
“Me too,” Newton says. “Give it a couple years. I’m sure by then _one_ of us will have a new academic pursuit we’ll have conflicting opinions about. Opinions that we can develop _separately_.”  
“I regard it with anticipation.” He still feels off-balance, anger undirected now, appropriated misery blending with his own endogenous upset.  
“It’s just the post-drift state,” Newton says softly, in ambiguous response, possibly addressing the argument, possibly picking up on Hermann’s thoughts. “C’mon. Let’s get dinner.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Supercos song "En Règle (and Out)."  
> If you want to read Designations and can't find a copy (or if you want to chat about it), hit me up me up on [tumblr](http://bookmarced.tumblr.com/) or [pillowfort](https://pillowfort.io/bookmarc).  
> Concrit received gladly.


End file.
